Re: [PATCH v3 5/6] ext4: introduce direct IO write path using iomap infrastructure

Matthew Bobrowski
2019-09-25T07:14:38Z

On Tue, Sep 24, 2019 at 04:13:21PM +0200, Jan Kara wrote:
> On Tue 24-09-19 20:29:26, Matthew Bobrowski wrote:
> > On Mon, Sep 23, 2019 at 11:10:11PM +0200, Jan Kara wrote:
> > > On Thu 12-09-19 21:04:46, Matthew Bobrowski wrote:
> > > > + if (offset + count > i_size_read(inode) ||
> > > > + offset + count > EXT4_I(inode)->i_disksize) {
> > > > + ext4_update_i_disksize(inode, inode->i_size);
> > > > + extend = true;
> > > > + }
> > >
> > > This call to ext4_update_i_disksize() is definitely wrong. If nothing else,
> > > you need to also have transaction started and call ext4_mark_inode_dirty()
> > > to actually journal the change of i_disksize (ext4_update_i_disksize()
> > > updates only the in-memory copy of the entry). Also the direct IO code
> > > needs to add the inode to the orphan list so that in case of crash, blocks
> > > allocated beyond EOF get truncated on next mount. That is the whole point
> > > of this excercise with i_disksize after all.
> > >
> > > But I'm wondering if i_disksize update is needed. Truncate cannot be in
> > > progress (we hold i_rwsem) and dirty pages will be flushed by
> > > iomap_dio_rw() before we start to allocate any blocks. So it should be
> > > enough to have here:
> >
> > Well, I initially thought the same, however doing some research shows that we
> > have the following edge case:
> > - 45d8ec4d9fd54
> > and
> > - 73fdad00b208b
> >
> > In fact you can reproduce the exact same i_size corruption issue by running
> > the generic/475 xfstests mutitple times, as articulated within
> > 45d8ec4d9fd54. So with that, I'm kind of confused and thinking that there may
> > be a problem that resides elsewhere that may need addressing?
>
> Right, I forgot about the special case explained in 45d8ec4d9fd54 where
> there's unwritted delalloc write beyond range where DIO write happens.
>
> > > if (offset + count > i_size_read(inode)) {
> > > /*
> > > * Add inode to orphan list so that blocks allocated beyond
> > > * EOF get properly truncated in case of crash.
> > > */
> > > start transaction handle
> > > add inode to orphan list
> > > stop transaction handle
> > > }
> > >
> > > And just leave i_disksize at whatever it currently is.
> >
> > I originally had the code which added the inode to the orphan list here, but
> > then I thought to myself that it'd make more sense to actually do this step
> > closer to the point where we've managed to successfully allocate the required
> > blocks for the write. This prevents the need to spray orphan list clean up
> > code all over the place just to cover the case that a write which had intended
> > to extend the inode beyond i_size had failed prematurely (i.e. before block
> > allocation). So, hence the reason why I thought having it in
> > ext4_iomap_begin() would make more sense, because at that point in the write
> > path, there is enough/or more assurance to make the call around whether we
> > will in fact be able to perform the write which will be extending beyond
> > i_size, or not and consequently whether the inode should be placed onto the
> > orphan list?
> >
> > Ideally I'd like to turn this statement into:
> >
> > if (offset + count > i_size_read(inode))
> > extend = true;
> >
> > Maybe I'm missing something here and there's actually a really good reason for
> > doing this nice and early? What are your thoughts about what I've mentioned
> > above?
>
> Well, the slight trouble with adding inode to orphan list in
> ext4_iomap_begin() is that then it is somewhat difficult to tell whether
> you need to remove it when IO is done because there's no way how to
> propagate that information from ext4_iomap_begin() and checking against
> i_disksize is unreliable because it can change (due to writeback of
> delalloc pages) while direct IO is running. But I think we can overcome
> that by splitting our end_io functions to two - ext4_dio_write_end_io() and
> ext4_dio_extend_write_end_io(). So:
>
> WARN_ON_ONCE(i_size_read(inode) < EXT4_I(inode)->i_disksize);
> /*
> * Need to check against i_disksize as there may be dellalloc writes
> * pending.
> */
> if (offset + count > EXT4_I(inode)->i_disksize)
> extend = true;

Hm... I'm not entirely convinced that EXT4_I(inode)->i_disksize is what we
should be using to determine whether an extension will be performed or
not? Because, my understanding is that i_size is what holds the actual value
of what the file size is expected to be and hence the reason why we previously
updated the i_disksize to i_size using ext4_update_i_disksize().

Also, there are cases where offset + count > EXT4_I(inode)->i_disksize,
however offset + count < i_size_read(inode). So in that case we may take an
incorrect path somewhere i.e. below where extend clause is true. Also, I feel
as though we should try stick to using one value as the reference to determine
whether we're performing an extension and not use i_disksize here and then
i_size over there kind of thing as that leads to unnecessary confusion?

> ...
> iomap_dio_rw(...,
> extend ? ext4_dio_extend_write_end_io : ext4_dio_write_end_io);
>
> and ext4_dio_write_end_io() will just take care of conversion of unwritten
> extents on successful IO completion, while ext4_dio_extend_write_end_io()
> will take care of all the complex stuff with orphan handling, extension
> of inode size, and truncation of blocks beyond EOF - and it can do that
> because it is guaranteed to run under the protection of i_rwsem held in
> ext4_dio_write_iter().
>
> Alternatively, we could also just pass NULL instead of
> ext4_dio_extend_write_end_io() and just do all the work explicitely in
> ext4_dio_write_iter() in the 'extend' case. That might be actually the most
> transparent option...

Well, with the changes to ext4_handle_inode_extension() conditions that you
recommended in patch 2/6, then I can't see why we'd need two separate
->end_io() handlers as we'd just abort early if we're not extending?

> But at this point there are so many suggestions in flight that I need to
> see current state of the code again to be able to tell anything useful :).

Heh, true. I will post through an updated patch series taking into account
most of the recommendations put forward for this series version and then we
can have a discussion based on that. :)

--<M>--